Ridgell's Originals

I am not sure we have done youth ministry well in the churches of Christ. I grew up in a church that hired one of the first full-time youth ministers in our fellowship. I served as the first full-time youth minister at Southern Hills. I have spoken at hundreds of youth rallies and events. So I think I am somewhat knowledgeable on this subject.

I do believe the concept of youth ministry has value. I believe an active youth ministry can be a tremendous tool for evangelism. But after forty years of heavy emphasis on youth ministry (including multiple full-time youth ministers on staff in many congregations), we still do not do any better at raising faithful children. We baptize almost all of our children, but we convert very few of them. Statistics show that only 25% to 33% of our young people stay active in church when grown.

At some point our view of youth ministry seemed to shift to an inward focus, tho maybe this is just a reflection of the church as a whole. Parents seemed to abdicate responsibility for the spiritual welfare of their children and turn it over to the youth ministry. It seems as if this ministry has become entertainment focused and activity based. Our young people do not know the Word. They do not know how to share their faith. In fact, many of them do not even know why they believe what they believe. Or in some cases, they don't even know what they believe. We seem to be driven more by what our teens say they want than what we know to be good for them.

In fact, I would say generally that the youth ministry model in our fellowship has failed. It is time to take the focus off of ourselves and challenge our youth with Jesus centered, Bible based ministry. Parents, and especially Dads, need to step up and take responsibility for the spiritual development of our children. Our youth programs must be about Jesus, not the teenagers. Our youth ministers must be people of the Book. Or maybe we would be healthier to drop youth ministry as a separate function of congregational life and work on integrating our teens into the church body as a whole.

I become more and more convinced that our small congregations that don't have "youth ministries" turn out a higher percentage of faithful children than do our larger congregations. Maybe there is a lesson there.

Now I know many of you grew up in active youth programs. And many of you have children in youth programs now. What made a difference for you growing up? Where you impacted by youth ministry, or by family, or by other church activities? What do you see that is working? What concerns you? Does our current model work? What can we do better?